A Fall of Silver (43 page)

“It hurts too much.”
The words strangled her.

“It only hurts if you’re not going to be faithful.”

“And what happens then? What if you die?”

“Then you’re right.
It’ll hurt.”

“I hate you!” She hit him with the pillow, half crying, half vicious.
How could he say that? It was tempting fate, reminding her of what lay outside the bedroom door. She couldn’t—didn’t want to—live if he died. “I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want any more pain. I can’t take it.”

“I think it’s already too late for that.”

“I don’t want to love you!”

“But?” he asked
in the quietest voice she’d ever heard. Her heart pounded so desperately she felt ill. “I love you.” Even he had the grace to look startled, although the expression only lasted a second.

“Yo
u don’t even know me! Or like me!”

He laughed and grabbed the pillow
away from her, shoving it under his shoulder. “You’re a pain in the ass, true enough, but that’s one of your more endearing qualities.”

“Very funny.”
She felt exposed, naked, and cold with sheer terror.

“So?
”

“So what?
You want me to admit it? To say I love you?” She tried to laugh, but couldn’t.

“It would be nice to hear.
Just try it. Once.”

“I—o
h, screw you.”

“Did that
. Although if you want to do it again, I’m game.”

She rolled over ont
o him and sat on his belly, her palms pressed on his chest. Leaning over him, she stared into his eyes searching for something to prove he hadn’t lied, that he wouldn’t hurt her.

He waited, his hands on her thighs.
His eyes were warm as they scanned her face.

“I love you.”
The words exploded like an accusation, but at least she’d said it. Her body shook. She waited, stiff and terrified.

“As long as you’re sure.”
He rolled over and pinned her under him.

“What are you—”

“You can be quiet now, my love. You’ve said it. It’s all over except for the screaming.”

Gigging
, she tried half-heartedly to resist but when his mouth moved down her belly she gave up to the sensation.

She might regret her words one day, but not tonight.

The next morning, Quicksilver objected drowsily when Kethan hauled her out of bed at five AM.
Despite a shower, she couldn’t seem to work past a strange barrier of numbness. She ought to be worried or nervous. Something.

Japanese robot
s showed more emotion than she felt as she followed Kethan into the hospital. A brisk nurse took charge of her and gave her orders to remove all her clothing and don a gown. They tucked her into a mobile bed, pulled the metal sides up to turn it into an adult crib, and pumped enough drugs into her system to make her stumble over a simple countdown from a hundred.

The taste of
garlic filled her mouth, then nothing.

When she
awoke, her body flushed hot and then cold. Pain tingled down every nerve in her spine, radiating outward from the back of her neck.

A
nurse with a hallucinogenic blouse lavishly strewn with cartoon bunnies and cats pressed a button into Quicksilver’s hand. “You can control your level of pain medication with this. Press it when you need to.” She patted her hand. “Okay?”

“Sure
,” she murmured, trying to sink back into the oblivion of sleep. The drugs didn’t help; only unconsciousness made the strobing pulses of agony stop.

By
evening, she had them remove all the tubes. The medication nauseated her. Another brisk nurse, this time with a blouse festooned with dogs and birds, tried to refuse, telling her that the tubes couldn’t be removed until she could walk.

She
swung her feet out of the bed.

The nurse shook her head.

Kethan attempted to help her, but she waved him away and braced herself against the wall to avoid falling flat on her behind. She would have laughed at the pinched expression on his face if her head didn’t ache so much. He reached out to steady her, but she told him to back off. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shook his head.

Quicksilver
gritted her teeth and made the trip down the hall.

When she got back to her room, sick and weak, she sat on the bed and watche
d as the nurse removed the IV. Then, she got up again. This time, she was steadier and the agony faded a fraction more—not completely—but a fraction.

“You should be resting,” Kethan said when she go
t up again after eating a disgusting dinner of watery, broiled chicken and tasteless, steamed vegetables.

“Just one more walk
. I want to get to the nurse’s station and back.”
Anything to get out of the hospital
. Her stomach roiled. She’d give anything for a hamburger.
Anything
. “They said if I could walk unassisted, I could go home.”

“I don’t think they meant they’d release you less than twenty-four hours after surgery.”

“We’ll see.”

“You’re pushing it
. You could’ve been crippled.”

“But I wasn’t. I just have the world’s worst migraine and absolutely no sense of balance.”

“Let me help you then.”

“No.” She grabbed his wrist when the floor tilt
ed sideways. “At least, not where the nurses can see. They won’t release me if I can’t walk and keep my balance.”

“Good.”

“What do you mean, ‘good’? Do you want me to stay here? Running up hospital bills? Do you realize they’re charging me for every little thing including that stupid plastic water pitcher? They wanted to charge me a dollar for a tiny bandage when I bit off my cuticle. It’s unbelievable.”

“At least you’re safe.”

Her fingers dug into his muscles. “Have you—have you seen my parents? Or Father Donatello? Is he all right?”

“No
and yes. He’s safe. I haven’t seen your parents.”

“Good.” She exhaled and concentrated
on bringing her heart rate down to normal and not vomiting on Kethan’s nice running shoes. “I’ll feel safer when I’m out of here and people stop shoving drugs down my throat.”

He laughed. “Just a couple of days.”

A couple of days….

“Cat!” She turned her head too quickly and felt a stab of agonizing pain.
After sucking in several quick breaths, she managed to speak. “There’s a cat at my place. Comes around at dusk or dawn. I’ve been feeding it.”

“It’s taken care of.”

“What? What do you mean, ‘taken care of’? What did you do?”

“
Nothing. Relax, will you? I noticed you feeding it. It’s a friendly little thing, isn’t it?”

Friendly
? Since when? She nodded, feeling betrayed in some way she couldn’t describe. How could he make friends with “her” cat so quickly when it barely trusted her?

“Great,” she said at last
, wishing she meant it.

“It loves tuna
. With luck, I’ll be able to lure it into a cat carrier and bring it to my place later today.”

“Why?” Panic made her stare at him. She was losing
control. Even her cat was moving in with someone else the first time she wasn’t around for a day or two.

“So you’ll have the cat when you get out. I think it misses you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t like me much
, but it’ll be at my place when they release you.”

Striving to talk herself out of a completely irrational
jealousy, she smiled. “Thanks, I appreciate it, and I’m sure the cat does, too. It doesn’t like missing meals.”

“Two more days,” he reassured her before helping her back into the hospital bed.

Unfortunately, Kethan was right about the date. The doctor was afraid of infection, despite her sarcastic remark that most people got their infections while in the hospital, not their homes. It took two more days of walking around the hospital, pestering the nurses, and refusing the food to prove she had recuperated. Finally, even the doctor had had enough and signed the orders for her release. Despite that, they still forced her to endure the indignity of a wheelchair exit from the hospital’s main entrance.

Finally at home, or at least at Kethan’s ho
me, Quicksilver relaxed in a lounge chair and tried to be relieved. She was still alive. That ought to be good news.

But the numbness she had felt before surgery hadn’t gone away. She felt as if she were trapped in a glass bubble, waiting for the fragile surface to shatter.

Maybe it was Kethan’s fault. He treated her like the least shock would topple her gauze-shrouded head off her shoulders. He’d set a chaise lounge overflowing with pillows on the tiny porch above his kitchen, explaining it with the specious remark that it provided her with a semi-private place to relax, however every time she looked up from her book or magazine, he was staring at her through the kitchen window.

As if his vigilance weren’t enough, t
he cat had taken up a position at the end of the chair, eyes half-closed, purring to itself. It followed her around, always just out of reach but never out of sight.

The
second day after her release, she lingered in her chair, drowsy and reluctant to move. The last rays of the sunset gilded the sky deep bronze, and the black, twisted branches of the trees twinkled with silver, still damp from the rain earlier that afternoon. The air smelled fresh and crisp with the scents of autumn.

Lifting her hand, she
stared at it. Her sensations were still curiously deadened, as if she no longer quite fit in this body, as if part of her were gone. Maybe the doctor had cut out the part that felt things so sharply, like the rough weave of a linen jacket or the cool moisture of ice, the part that burned with the need for vengeance.

Her life seemed unreal
, a video game where she saw the action but was removed from all pain and sensation, where she was waiting for the other shoe to drop and the action to begin.

Dr. Fletcher
had assured her that the numbness would pass, that she’d be normal. She sipped the glass of iced green tea and leaned back, letting the tart liquid laced with honey trickle over her tongue and down her parched throat.

With a grimace, she put the glass back down on the glass table next to her.
Everything tasted funny. Her stomach clenched uncomfortably, reminding her of the sickening garlic taste that had filled her mouth when the anesthesiologist asked her to count backwards.

“Where be your lad?” A
man’s deep voice broke the silence.

She glanced up, noticing that as she sat there, sipping her tea and daydreaming, evening had slid unnoticed into night.
The silhouette of a man, stocky and round-headed, stood at the far corner of the porch.

“He just stepped inside,” she lied
, not knowing where Kethan was. From the corner of her eye she noticed there was no dark silhouette in the kitchen window. For once, Kethan had abandoned his post.

She was alone except for the cat. Another glance told her that the cat had disappeared
, too.

Martyn Sutton glided closer, a grin on his cherub-cheeked face
, his head cocked to one side. Despite his “hail fellow, well met” appearance, he managed to exude something darker and far more dangerous, and he maximized the impact by casually fiddling with a butterfly knife.

“Just inside, eh?
I’m surprised you’re not screaming for him, then.” His gaze casually ran over her, noting the soft blanket draped over her knees, the book in her lap, her glass of tea, and most damning of all, the bottle of pain medication on the table at her side. “Where be your whip? Surely you’ve not left that inside, too?”

“I don’t need it.”
The knife she’d used to cut her sandwich in half lay on the edge of her plate. Kethan had broken out the fine china and silver in honor of her successful surgery, so the knife was silver.

But it
rested on the floor next to her. She let her arm fall to the side in a casual, lazy gesture and picked it up. It was a pathetic, dull blade but it comforted her to hold the solid handle against the palm of her hand.

She would
n’t go easy into the soft goodnight.

Gripping the knife, she slid it into her lap under the blanket.

His eyes glinted as if he’d noticed and was amused by her actions. “Nay, lass, always have your weapons handy. ‘Tis unhealthy to be out on a night like this. Alone.”

“
I’m safe enough. There’s the truce, and you’re the one who wanted it, aren’t you?”

“And you’re
the one preventing it.” He advanced until he stood a foot away from the end of the lounger.